Why popular street is a ghost town

About third of businesses in Melbourne’s famed Chapel Street precinct have had to shut or reduce hours in recent weeks due to Covid-induced staff shortages, as retailers report times are tougher than ever.

Businesses grappling with staff shortages because workers are off sick due to Covid or isolating, say they are worse off now than during lockdown when they at least received government support payments.

“We have over 2200 businesses we represent and I’d say about 30 per cent of them have had to in some way temporarily close, whether they’ve had to shorten their trading hours or the number of trading days,” Chapel Street Precinct general manager Chrissie Maus says.

“The business owners are feeling I’d say the highest anxiety they’ve ever had.”

Arthur Georgiou, owner of South Yarra restaurant Caffe E Cucina, said the restaurant has been closed for 13 days as a third of his 36 staff took time off to quarantine.

“A lot of them have had Covid and were recovering in isolation,” he said.

“In order to open our beautiful restaurant we need at least 12 people a day and that wasn’t possible so we had to take the drastic action to close.

“A lot of stock perished because we were scheduled to open on the 2nd of January, but that obviously couldn’t go ahead because of the circumstances.”

Mr Georgiou said the restaurant hopes to open Thursday but financially it has been difficult, with the business unable to generate income but still paying staff off sick.

“This one will challenge us seriously, especially if there’s no government assistance forthcoming,” he said.

“It’s quite debilitating. You feel a little bit helpless, you feel sad, almost a bit guilty.

“It’s obviously no one’s fault.”

Burger shop Burgertory has had to shut four of its 16 stores across Melbourne because of staff shortages.

“Just before Christmas, 260 out of our 400 staff tested positive to Covid,” owner Hash Tayeh said.

“We’ve had to reduce opening hours across the board so we’re not open for lunch at most of the stores.”

Its Chapel Street store cut its hours to cope, while one of the closed stores reopened Wednesday.

“I haven’t worked in the stores in over two years, but I’ve been doing night shifts at the stores until 4 or 5 am just so we could get the doors open,” Mr Tayeh said.

“We’re losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in revenue. But we’re also losing money across the board in terms of paying staff out their benefits with no income coming in.

“Even during the lockdowns I don’t think anyone was struggling as much as they are now, to be honest.”

Most of the stores on neighbouring Greville Street have also only been open a few times since Christmas, Chapel Street Precinct’s Ms Maus said.

The Angus & Bon Steak House has also only been opened a few times since Christmas, with three quarters of the 70 staff having had or now off with Covid.

Ms Maus is meeting with Small Business Minister Jaala Pulford on Wednesday to discuss the issue.

Apart from the bigger businesses, most had burned through their cash reserves with many remortgaging houses or borrowing money to keep going, she said.

“We just need the governments to come together and we need assistance at this time, otherwise all the money that’s been given to them in the past 22 months would have been wasted,” she said.

“We are waving, we have our hand up and it is code red in the small and medium business sector.

“If we still want to have a Chapel St precinct, the iconic jewel in Melbourne’s crown, we need urgent government support and that needs to be cash.

“It’s critical.”